On Little Girls in "Sexy" Clothes

I have three boys. This means I'm not exactly savvy when it comes to the latest little girl fashions. Frankly, I'm not well versed in the little boy fashions, either, except boy clothes are typically a shirt and pants, with little variation beyond the plaid versus stripes versus graphic debate. School uniforms are easy, too: polo shirt and khaki pants. Done and done. I like boy clothes.

Girl clothes, I gather, are a whole different world. First of all, in the kids' clothing section of your average department store, at least two-thirds of the clothes are girls'. After all, when it comes to boys, it's pretty much pants or shorts and a shirt. Girls have pants and shorts and many different kinds of shirts and then dresses and skirts and dresses and dresses and dresses and, oh, did I mention dresses? Dresses scare me. I don't even like to wear dresses, except on special occasions. I was never very girly. I see my friends' daughters wearing dresses and glittery stuff and princessy stuff, and it's just way outside my vocabulary.

But even so, I know that I get disturbed when I see little girls wearing "mature" clothes. By this, I mean toddler and elementary aged girls wearing small bikinis, short shorts, strappy shirts, off-the-shoulder shirts, pants and shorts with words on the butt, skinny jeans and leggings without a suitably long shirt over them, and so on. These styles are meant to be sexy on an adult woman, and there's something vaguely uncomfortable to me about seeing a little girl in "sexy" clothes. I've heard many arguments for and against little girls wearing such clothing, from "But it's cute!" to "What about the pedophiles?" but none of those arguments fully explained why I personally am made uncomfortable by it.

It was walking home from delivering my son to kindergarten one morning that I finally understood exactly what bugs me.

In Judaism, we have a concept called "tzniut," which roughly translates to "modesty." Tznuit is a very basic fact of religious Jewish life and refers to how both men and women should dress as well as the subjects that are discussed in public. When a woman wants to dress according to tzniut, she wears a long skirt and long-sleeved, high-necked shirt. A man should dress in a way in which he positively presents himself, in clean clothing that is well maintained, appropriate to his situation. From childhood, girls and boys are taught to dress in a tzniut way, to present themselves modestly, and to stay away from non-tzniut discussion such as what might go on in the bedroom. When children grow up always wearing modest clothing, it comes naturally to continue to dress that way.

On the flip side, then, if a girl grows up having been dressed in "sexy" clothing as a young girl, it will continue to come naturally to her to dress that way as she grows. If she's always worn short skirts and bikinis and tiny tank tops, she will not be uncomfortable dressing this way, and she might not realize that she may be inviting unwanted attention, or that others may be objectifying her. She doesn't necessarily dress this way, at eight years old, to attract men or attention; she dresses this way because she always has, and she has been raised to think it's "cute."

I realize, of course, that at some point a girl is going to grow up and want to dress like her friends, in what's stylish, regardless of her upbringing. I have no advice or perspective on this, since I do not have a teenage daughter, nor was I your typical teenage girl. However, there's something distinctly different, to me, about a 15-year-old girl wearing short shorts and a nine-year-old girl wearing the same. A 15-year-old is likely considerably more aware of her sexuality and will deliberately dress in a way which she believes enhances her desirable traits to teenage boys she wishes to attract. A nine-year-old should not be thinking or behaving in such a way. (Not that I'm condoning a 15-year-old acting this way, but at least, to my mind, it makes a certain amount of sense - teenagers are supposed to act that way.)

In the same vein, how we dress reflects how we want others to see us. When young girls are already objectifying themselves as sexual objects, how can we expect young boys not to see them that way? If we teach our daughters to dress in a way that is respectful of their own bodies, they can learn that the types of boys they might attract by dressing inappropriately are not the types of boys they should want to attract, anyway.

My husband and I were wandering around Kohl's the other day, and he pointed out a rather short skirt in the young girls' clothing section and said, "I would never let my daughter wear this." I agreed instantly, assuming we have a daughter one day to avoid dressing that way, and mentioned that I was working on this very blog post. I don't have a problem with little girls wanting to look pretty. But there is a difference between "pretty" and "sexy," and little girls need to learn that boundary. It is our duty as parents to help them find that line, and it can start with how we dress them as toddlers and preschoolers.

On a related note, I try to teach my boys to show respect to themselves and others in the way they dress, as well. We don't leave the house if they're not dressed, and I don't like them to wear dirty, stained, or ripped clothing (well, at any rate, we don't start out in stained or dirty clothes - they are boys, after all!). It bothers me if they look not-put-together, for example, if their shirt or pants are put on backward. Dressing in clean, well-maintained clothing shows that you respect yourself and others who will be seeing you. So while my boys have no desire to wear skinny jeans or short skirts, we do still have standards that we try to have them stick to.

Hygeia Pump Contest

Hey everyone,

Just popping in to let you know that there's a chance to win a fantastic pump from Hygeia Baby over at http://www.babyguygearguide.com/breast-side-story. This pump has great reviews, and Hygeia is a wonderful company who follow the WHO Code for the marketing of bottles and breast milk substitutes. Go check it out!

Feeding Other People's Babies

The other evening, we made a trip to the emergency room because my husband was sick. Fortunately, it wasn't serious, and he's fine, but it was an interesting experience. We left the three kids home with a sitter, hoping it wouldn't be more than a few hours that we would be there. Thank goodness I still had some pumped milk in my freezer from a couple of months ago. I left that and a bottle for the baby, left instructions and dinner for the older kids, and we were off.

While there, aside from worrying about my husband, my mind of course kept dwelling on whether GI was taking the bottle, hoping he wasn't screaming in hunger, hoping the other two kids went to bed nicely, hoping everyone was fine. I didn't get overly engorged - we were there about four hours, so the baby would only have eaten once, maybe twice, in that time anyway - but I did have two let-downs while we were sitting there.

As an aside, I will say straight out that the biggest inconvenience in breastfeeding is that you are tied to your baby. GI would not, in no uncertain terms, take the bottle from the sitter, and so was ravenously hungry when we got back from the ER. If he were regularly bottle-fed, there would have been no problem. However, the incredible benefits to breastfeeding far outweigh, to me, the occasional problem of not being able to be away from him for more than a couple of hours. And, certainly, if I were regularly away from him and regularly pumping, and he was regularly eating from bottles, it wouldn't really have been a problem either. Since I'm with him all the time, I don't have the patience or desire to pump and store milk and have someone else feed him when it really is easier just to nurse him. Other women do prefer to pump milk and have someone else (say, Dad) feed the baby once or twice a day (or night), and that's perfectly reasonable as well, as long as your supply is fine and the baby doesn't have a problem switching between breast and bottle.

But back to the story at hand. The way the emergency room was set up, we could pretty much hear what was going on with most of the other patients behind the other curtains. At the far end of the room, there was a woman with her husband, mother, and newborn baby. The woman had had a c-section, and I assume she was in the ER for some reason related to that. I couldn't hear everything they said, but I felt bad for her. I've been in that same situation. I heard the baby making rooting noises and fussing, and then I heard the nurse tell the mother that she couldn't breastfeed for 24 hours. I almost wanted to offer to nurse the baby for her. I had all this milk collecting in my breasts, and she had a hungry newborn who she couldn't nurse. I decided it would have been too weird to approach a random stranger in the ER and offer to feed her baby, and then the ER nurse brought over a bottle of formula for the baby, but the whole thing made me sad. First of all, even though they tell you not to breastfeed for 24 hours after they give you certain medications, it is often not true that those meds are incompatible with breastfeeding. It's important to check. Find out what they gave you and then do your own research as to whether it's okay to breastfeed. Secondly, since they knew she was breastfeeding, it would have been nice if they gave her meds that they know to be compatible with breastfeeding so there wouldn't be a problem. And, finally, that early in the breastfeeding relationship, giving bottles of formula for a day can be a great stress on the success of future breastfeeding. I'm not saying that being in the ER ruined this woman's ability to continue breastfeeding her daughter, but it certainly made it harder.

As far as offering to feed her baby, well, I've never actually nursed someone else's baby before. I know there are some women who set up baby-sitting shares, where they'll watch each other's babies and even nurse them. But, more often, if you are helping to feed someone else's baby, it's by pumping and donating milk to her, rather than directly nursing her child. I have donated milk in the past, with my abundance after SB was born, and I had every intention of doing the same with my similarly abundant supply with GI. This time, I find it difficult to pump even once a day, with three kids home all the time, so I didn't keep up with the pumping and now just have a small freezer stash. There were two women I thought I would be donating milk to, and I think that if I knew there was someone depending on me to pump for her, I would have, but neither one wanted my milk in the end, so I haven't been doing it.

Aside from donating to personal friends or acquaintances, you can also donate your milk to a mother in need who you don't necessarily know in person. There are a few informal milk-sharing groups out there, where a woman with milk to donate can be connected directly with a woman in need of milk and they can make arrangements for the direct donation of milk between mothers. It's pretty neat. These include Human Milk 4 Human Babies, Milkshare, and Eats on Feets.

You can also donate excess pumped milk to a milk bank affiliated with HMBANA. They have a screening process to make sure your milk is healthy for the preemie babies it is usually fed to. This usually just involves a blood test and a questionnaire to make sure you are healthy and not using any medications that might be harmful to a baby.

So, why donate milk, anyway? Isn't that kind of... gross?

First of all, milk is milk. Human milk is meant to feed human babies. And while the best milk for a given baby is his own mother's milk, any breastmilk (provided it isn't carrying a life-threatening disease or harmful chemicals or drugs, of course) is better for any baby than artificial milk, excepting very specific and special circumstances. The hierarchy of the best food for a young baby is: 1) His own mother's milk directly from the breast; 2) His own mother's expressed milk; 3) Expressed milk from another woman; 4) Formula/artificial baby milk.

Thus, if a woman is unable to produce enough milk herself to feed her child, the most desirable alternative for feeding that baby is donated human milk from another lactating mother. There are many women out there with excess milk in their freezers, or women who desire to do something useful with their life-giving milk, but they don't know what to do with it or who to give it to. I hope naming those resources above will be helpful.

Why donated milk instead of formula? Isn't formula good enough?


Well, yes and no. Formula is adequate to give your baby the nutrition he needs to grow. However, there is so much more to breastmilk than just nutrients, and more and more studies about breastmilk show that breastmilk is about far more than just feeding. To put it very succinctly, babies are born without gut bacteria. We need to populate the gut with the "good" bacteria, that help digest food and protect against infection. Human milk works in various ways to promote the growth of good bacteria, prevent inflammation and tissue damage to tender newborn guts, and to directly protect against invading infectious agents. Formula does not do any of these things. Young babies who receive even one bottle of formula in the early days and weeks of life will have a different gut flora (population and type of bacteria) than exclusively breastfed babies. This can cause inflammation and other undesirable effects on the "virgin" gut of a young baby. (Please note, the "virgin gut" can be reclaimed by exclusively breastfeeding, but it takes time, something like 6 weeks.) Once you introduce solid foods, the gut is no longer "virgin," anyway, but in those first six months, and especially in the first 10 days before the baby's immune system starts up, breastmilk is very important. Formula is adequate, but breastmilk is normal. Please see this excellent explanation from the Lakeshore Medical Breastfeeding Medicine Clinic and Dr. Jenny Thomas, MD, IBCLC, FAAP, FABM (how's that for a bank of initials after her name!).

It wasn't so long ago that it was reasonably common to for one woman to nurse another's baby. In other cultures, it still happens. Human milk is human milk, after all, and doesn't it make more sense to feed a baby milk from another woman of his own species than the milk from a totally different animal?

I've thought about it a lot over the course of nursing two babies, and I think that, if I were asked, I would happily feed another woman's baby. That's assuming, of course, that the baby would be willing to have me nurse him! I certainly would have no problem pumping a bottle for another baby if I were asked to help out.

By the way, it is possible to ship frozen breastmilk, although the less time the milk is out of a freezer, the better. I once shipped milk overnight from California to Florida in the middle of summer and it was still usable when it arrived, but we cut it kind of close. Donating/receiving milk locally, where it would only be out of the freezer for a short while, is preferable. The Milkshare website has a good couple of pages on storing, freezing, and shipping breastmilk intended for donation.

And remember that supply is governed by demand, so if you do decide you want to start pumping and storing for donation, you should be able to increase your supply over time in order to continue to provide milk for your own baby as well as putting some aside for another baby in need.

My Post-Baby Body

In this post, I'm brutally honest about my body.

Before I became pregnant with my first child, I had always taken my figure somewhat for granted. It's not that I was skinny or in shape - I've always been a couch potato - but I could wear the clothes I wanted to wear and was comfortable with myself. I never thought I'd gain lots of weight in pregnancy or have trouble losing it. I never realized how different my post-baby body would look and act.

I gained 50 pounds in my first pregnancy. I took pregnancy as a license to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I knew I wasn't actually eating for two, but everything looked so good and my appetite was ridiculously large. And it's not as if I was active. I sat around all day at work and then sat around all evening at home. I've never been an active person, and if you're not active before pregnancy, you're surely not going to want to be active during those days of morning sickness and fatigue! After the birth, I lost about 30 of those pounds, mostly fluids and baby, and, over time, I got down to about 10 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight, which, admittedly, had been 10 pounds over what I wanted to weigh. I then got pregnant with my second, already 20 pounds heavier than I wanted to be. My biggest issue was with my post-c-section belly, which has what we who have had a c-section like to call "the shelf." When they sew you back up after the surgery, they pull the skin tight, leaving a "shelf" of fat and loose skin that hangs over your incision. No matter how much your abs tighten back up, that bit of floppy skin and fat remain as an unsightly and unexpected bulge.

In my second pregnancy, I found the only way to keep morning sickness at bay was to be eating constantly. Though I had promised myself I would not gain 50 pounds again, though I knew how unhappy I was with my weight the first time around, I couldn't stop eating. Even as the morning sickness passed, I had developed the terrible habit of eating all the time, and my appetite was enormous again. And so I became enormous and gained about 55 pounds the second time around. When I was supposed to be gaining a healthy 1/2 to 1 pound a week, I was gaining 2 to 4 pounds a week. It was out of control. The only advice my midwife had to offer was to "eat off smaller plates" and try to stick to healthy foods. Well, I might eat off a smaller plate, lady, but I'll go back for thirds and fourths. It wasn't helpful, and I gave up. And, no, I wasn't any more active, either.

I gave birth and lost that 25 or so pounds of fluids and baby again and at least wasn't left with a second surgical scar, but the "shelf" remained from the first time. So did the other 30 pounds. I couldn't get rid of it. Everybody said that breastfeeding burns 500 calories a day, and I'd lose the weight easily. Only, breastfeeding made me hungrier even than pregnancy had, and I found myself eating those extra 500 calories and then some. Suffice it to say, I only lost some weight when I convinced myself to start counting calories. I did lose about 16 pounds, was very happy about it, then rewarded myself at my birthday party with a red velvet cake. And then I started eating again. Though I was exercising a bit more - a friend and I took almost-daily 1-hour walks with our strollers - I simply couldn't drop the weight or keep it off.

I got pregnant for the third time at the same weight I was just after giving birth to my second. This time, I said, I will not gain 50 pounds. And, suprisingly, I didn't. As soon as I weaned my second and stopped breastfeeding (during my first month of pregnancy), my appetite vanished. I hardly had any morning sickness, and I found myself eating noticeably smaller portions than I had in years. I was thrilled. In the first trimester, I gained no weight. I wish I could tell you what my secret was, but I don't know how it happened. By the end of this third pregnancy, I had gained about 30 pounds, and now I've lost all of it. During the first couple of months postpartum, though I haven't actively dieted, breastfeeding and a healthier appetite seemed to have helped me get rid of what I gained in this pregnancy. But I still have 40 pounds I'd like to lose, and I can't seem to do it. My appetite is back, I'm eating huge portions again, mostly carbs and sugar. Every morning I say "today's the day I cut back," and by evening my resolve is gone and I'm snacking on cookies again. (And even if I don't buy cookies, I know how to bake them!)

I'm not happy with how my body looks. My hips are wide, my belly looks like I'm perpetually four months pregnant, I can't find pants that fit properly, and I feel like my lumps are in all the wrong places. My breasts have grown from a B-cup before my first pregnancy to about an E cup now, and they don't show signs of shrinking. I hope that losing weight will help my breasts shrink back down a bit. The oddest thing is that my face, arms, legs, and butt are all fine - I'm actually quite happy from the shoulders up and hips down, but my middle is jiggly, bulgy, and weirdly shaped. Clothes fit strangely, and almost five months postpartum, I still wear a lot of maternity clothes because that's all that fit reasonably comfortably around my middle.

I've never had body image issues. I've never worried so much about what I weigh or how I look. I dress so that I'm comfortable. But lately I've found myself gazing angrily at myself in the mirror. I realize I won't ever have a model's figure (I never did), and I realize that my pregnancy-altered body will never look like it did when I was 20, no matter how much dieting and exercising I do, but I really would like to be able to find clothes that fit me well and flatter me a little. I don't consider myself unattractive, and my loving husband tells me every day that he thinks I'm beautiful, but it's hard to feel beautiful when you're lumpy and don't like any of your clothes.

I have a friend who lost 50 pounds by eating better and exercising. She looks amazing, after three kids and two c-sections. She tells me that at some point, I'll find the motivation, and losing that weight and getting in shape will become the most important thing. Maybe it will. I hope so. I know how to do it. I just don't have the resolve yet.

I think it's important to accept that pregnancy and childbirth change your body. You've brought life into this world! Of course there will be changes. I don't expect to be modeling swimsuits, and I don't especially want to wear a bikini to the beach anyway, so I'm not so concerned with getting rid of every stretch mark and jiggle. But I do want to be healthy, to maintain a reasonable weight and to be in decent shape, if only to be able to keep up with my kids and to do fun activities with them. I also want to set a good example for them, of a healthy diet, healthy eating habits, and healthy activity.

I'll get there. In the meantime, at least I'm aware of what I want to change. I suppose that's a first step.

Pacifiers

I have a love-hate relationship with pacifiers. With NJ, pacifiers were sort of a given from the start. He had one in the hospital, liked it, and didn't have my boob for soothing. I didn't know up from down when it came to pacifiers, he liked it, we liked it, so we used it. I was aware that he shouldn't use it past three years old, and I knew I didn't like seeing kids walking around with pacifiers in their mouths, but other than that, hey, great, it calms him down, let's use it!

He liked the pacifier. A lot. And he wasn't picky, either. I know some kids become attached to one particular kind of pacifier and won't take any other, but NJ didn't care. If he could suck on it, he wanted it. It helped him fall asleep. It kept him calm in the car. It kept him quiet between feedings. All-in-all, I'd say the pacifier was fantastic for him. If sucking is soothing for a baby, and a pacifier is something he can safely suck on, then he should have at it!

Unfortunately, he loved the pacifier well past his second birthday, by which point I was tiring of seeing it in his mouth all the time. He couldn't/wouldn't sleep without it, and he wouldn't look for it on his own if he awoke in the night, so we'd have to go in, feel around for it, and give it back to him. He had to have it in the car. Then, of course, he'd drop it, and we'd have to fish around on the floor of the back seat trying to find it so he'd stop whining for it. "My binky! My binky! My binky!" (I don't know why he called it a binky. We always called it a paci. Funny how kids pick up on a name that they like. I assume he learned it at daycare.) We found out that the daycare managed to keep it away from him except at naptime, but he wasn't as agreeable to that with us.

Then, when he was about two years and three months old, he had an accident at daycare where he was flipped off a garden swing and knocked some teeth loose. The dentist suggested that we not use the paci at least until the teeth reintegrated (6 weeks!), but she understood that it might be impossible to keep it away from him. We managed at that point to tell him that the pacifier could hurt his teeth more and that he shouldn't have it except when he was sleeping. From then on, he only had it for naps and bedtime, which was great. Eventually, he would just forget to ask for it at bedtime, had it maybe once in three nights, and then finally just didn't use it anymore. I was so thankful that we didn't have to wrestle it away from him.

As my love-hate relationship became more of a hate>love relationship with the pacifier, we only half-heartedly tried to get SB to take one. At first, I didn't want to offer one at all, partly because I didn't want it to interfere with breastfeeding, and mostly because NJ was still using his and I hated it by that point. Our half-hearted attempt to introduce the paci at 4 weeks fell away quickly. There were times when we kind of wished he used one, like when he would be crying inconsolably in the car, and because I was the only one who could get him to sleep (yes, I was a "human pacifier"). I don't think it occurred to me at first that a pacifier would have probably gotten me a bit longer between feedings, if I had been willing to try anyway, since he was doing a lot of comfort-sucking. But once those initial problems ended, and especially when he was down to only breastfeeding at night, we were glad to have a toddler who didn't have the darn thing in his mouth all the time.

But when GI was born, we decided that maybe we'd try it again. See, we began to think back fondly on how if NJ was fussing in the car, pop in the pacifier. Trouble falling asleep? Pacifier! Wants to suck but nursed recently? Pacifier! My mother-in-law came to stay with us for a couple of months after GI was born, and she would watch him and the other boys for me while I ran errands and such (such a luxury!), and if he'd get hungry while I was out, she'd first try soothing him with the pacifier so he would wait until I got home, if I knew I would only be 15 or 20 minutes longer. (If it was longer than that, she'd give him a bottle of expressed milk - I wasn't starving my baby!) He reached a point where he was willing to accept the pacifier to help him fall asleep, to go back to sleep if he had eaten recently, and to calm him in the car. The greatest part is that his brothers can find and pop in the pacifier in the car so we don't have to reach back and feel around for it.

I'm concerned that he'll start rejecting the pacifier now, though. I've tried to give it to him a few times the past few evenings when he's been fussy, and he wants none of it. From me, he wants boob and nothing else. Now that we've decided he should have a pacifier, it would be a cruel irony if he decided he didn't want it! We'll see what happens. If he does reject it on his own, at least I won't have to worry about trying to get it away from him in toddlerhood. He has discovered the joys of sucking on his fists or fingers. I wonder if he'll be my first thumbsucker. I have mixed feelings about thumbsucking, mostly leaning toward "OH NO PLEASE NO." But there are positives - your thumbs are always there. You can't drop or lose them. You know where to find them. They never change. You never have to buy new ones. On the other hand (har har), well, hands covered in spit all the time. Dirty hands in mouth all the time. (Although, admittedly, both NJ and SB have their fingers in their mouths all the time anyway. Ew.) Can't "take away" the thumb the way you can take away a pacifier. I sucked my thumb in secret until I was seven. So, yeah. Thumbsucking, I think, would be worse than the pacifier.

A pacifier is aptly named. Sucking is calming for babies. It makes perfect sense. If they enjoy sucking, then they'll enjoy breastfeeding. The sucking is good for mom and for baby. But once milk supply and latch are  established, it is helpful to have a means to soothe the baby if mom isn't around to nurse him just at that moment, or if mom wants a few minutes to put the baby down, or if someone else is trying to get him to fall asleep when he isn't hungry. I don't, however, like seeing a pacifier dangling from the lips of a two-year-old, or stopping up the mouth of a three-year-old. I did find myself saying the other day that the pacifier is awesome, though, when it let me put GI back to sleep and then get back to what I was doing, rather than having to let him comfort nurse for hours.

I am a big fan of the "blankie," except for the "oh shoot, we forgot the blankie" moments. A lovey can be very helpful for sleep and soothing away from home, especially. NJ had six blankies. SB didn't have a lovey. I'm curious to see what kind of kid GI becomes.

On Babywearing

I have a confession to make: I hate babywearing. I don't hate it as a trend, or as a practice, or as an ideal. I just hate doing it.

Ever since NJ was a baby, I've owned a Babyhawk mei tai. I put the brand name here, even though I don't usually specifically endorse products, because I believe this is a well-made, quality product that deserves specific mention. After all, I've been using it for 5 years, with three babies, and it's still going strong. Mine has a cool dragon pattern on the outside.

Here's NJ in it:

And here's SB in it:

And, of course, GI in it, famously breastfeeding as we hiked (as seen in pictures last week as well):

The point of this is to show you that, yes, I've used it with three babies. Granted, it may not be obvious that this is three different babies, but you can see that I've aged a bit in five years, and certainly gained some weight (although that's a post for another time!).

See, in theory, I like the concept of babywearing. I should define that, first, I suppose. The idea of babywearing is that the baby still needs to be close to mom even after birth, so rather than putting him down all the time, you should be holding him. Holding the baby helps him adjust to your rhythms of life, your breathing, your heartbeat, and your daily activity. The motion soothes him, being exposed to daylight during the day helps him regulate his circadian rhythms, and it's comforting to him to be near mom. Of course, carrying a baby all day isn't practical, since we typically need our hands free for, well, everything else, so we have many cultures throughout the world who have invented various types of baby carriers, so that rather than hold the baby in arms, we can "wear" him. (Obviously, anyone can wear the baby - dad, grandma, aunt, big sibling, but I'm talking about me, so it's a generic "mom" right now.)

There are many types of carriers. There are upright, structured carriers like the Ergo or Beco. These are variations on the Asian-style carrier, the mei tai, like the one I use. There are slings, which are basically just a folded-over piece of fabric sewn into a loop you put over one shoulder and put the baby into the pouch that is created. There are several different kinds of slings. There's the ever-popular Moby Wrap, which is a very long strip of fabric that you can wrap and tie around yourself in various ways to hold the baby in different positions. And more well-known brands such as Baby Bjorn and Snugli are contributions to the plethora of baby carriers that allow you to keep baby close at all times, rather than put him down.

There are many conveniences to babywearing. My hiking example is a great one. You can't put a young baby in a structured backpack - they don't have the trunk strength to support their upper body and head in one of those until they're older. But you can wrap them securely around your front, where your body supports theirs. Plus, as mentioned, you can even nurse them in there. 

Another example is shopping. Before baby is able to sit upright in the seat of a shopping cart, shopping with baby can be a real challenge. I'm not comfortable propping the baby's carseat atop the cart, as many, many people do. It is not safe; the cart and carseat are not designed to fit together, and a little bump can send the carseat tumbling to the floor. But what to do? You can try shopping with baby in a stroller and putting your items in the stroller basket, but that's inconvenient, and it's hard to buy larger items or a lot at one time. Some supermarkets have infant seats attached to them, but they're often grimy, in disrepair, and don't have a great harness. But, if you wear your baby while shopping, you can push the shopping cart, fill it to the brim, and know baby is safe at all times.*

*I'm assuming here that you are using your baby carrier in its intended way and that you know all of the safety guidelines and instructions for using it properly.

You can baby-wear around the house, when doing laundry, vacuuming (the sound of a vacuum is usually soothing to a fussy newborn), caring for older children. You can wear the baby at the park or the zoo or at school so that your hands are free for your older children and baby is always with you.

So now that I've talked up babywearing so much, what about what I said up there, about hating it?

Well, the thing is, I do.

I hate grocery shopping while wearing the baby, because I can't lean over to get things from low shelves or to unload my cart onto the belt at the cash register. I can't lift anything heavy, like a case of water, because my center of balance is off and I have this big bulge of baby in front of me.

I don't feel comfortable cooking or washing dishes while wearing the baby. What if oil should splatter or hot water should splash?

I can't pick up my toddler while wearing the baby.

I can't sit down while wearing the baby - his feet get in the way.

I can't do my day job while wearing the baby. See feet problem.

I hate the extra weight on my feet and hips. My back and shoulders and legs always ache after a day of wearing him. I suppose if I wore him all the time, I'd get used to it?

I can't eat while wearing the baby. My arms feel like they're so far away from me, and I'm afraid I'll drop food on his head.

Most of all, I hate tying and untying, tying and untying, tying and untying the darn thing all the time!

I think my problem is that I want to babywear, but I'm not comfortable doing it. It's possible that some other carrier might work better for me - a Moby, perhaps - although I haven't tried one. An Ergo or Beco would eliminate the tying-untying thing, but still have all the other problems.

When the baby is a bit older, I'll be able to wear him on my back, and then I suppose I could cook and shop and such more easily. But you can't wear a newborn on your back in a mei tai.

I have to admit it, though. I really look forward to when GI is able to sit on his own and I can just plop him into the seat of the cart or in a high chair in a restaurant. Much easier. For me.

I'm not trying to disparage babywearing. In theory, I love the idea of it. I love that there are so many choices of carrier out there, and so many different ways to "wear" your baby as he grows. I agree wholeheartedly with all of the benefits of it. I do use my carrier. I do. But it's out of necessity and not love, and only when the convenience outweighs the irritation.

Whew. Glad to get that off my chest.

4-Month Well Visit and Cosleeping Commentary

I had an interesting visit to the doctor yesterday for GI's four-month physical. I like this doctor for reasons you will shortly understand.

First of all, GI was 26.75" long (tall?) and 17lbs., 7.7oz. This makes him slightly heavier and longer than SB was at the same age, but not nearly matching NJ's robust 18lbs., 14oz. SB's weight gain didn't level out until six months. GI may be slowing down sooner, possibly because he was born in his own time and was bigger to start with than SB was. SB had some catching up to do because he was a couple of weeks early. It will be interesting to see which brother's build GI's more resembles as he grows. My guess is that he's going to be a big, tall guy like his oldest brother, though. SB had his three-year physical last week and was in the 75th percentile for his age, but he always strikes me as being short and skinny, probably because NJ is just so big.

Anyway, back to the pediatrician.

First, he said obviously I'm doing fine with breastfeeding and to just keep doing that. (Not that I was worried!) He asked if I was giving Vitamin D supplements, which I'm not, mostly because I'm bad about it and not because I don't recognize that Vitamin D is important. I've been taking a supplement for myself, and we do get some sun every day. He then said that he's not so crazy about them, either. Ha!

Then he asked where GI is sleeping. I told him in my bed. He said the AAP is now recommending officially that babies not sleep in their parents' bed but in a crib nearby. I said the AAP is welcome to come and take care of GI at night if that's how they feel about it. He said that SIDS dropped to almost nonexistent after the back-to-sleep campaign in the '90s, but that the rates have been creeping back up, and that most of the babies who are dying of SIDS are in their parents' bed. He said he's supposed to tell me that but then admitted that all three of his kids slept with them (and sometimes still do) and that he loves cosleeping and understands why I do it. Ha!

According to my reading, in a controlled bed space with sober parents, especially if the baby is breastfeeding, cosleeping is quite safe and healthy for a normally developing baby. And mom gets a lot more sleep! But having the baby in the room with mom, whether in a bassinet, crib, cosleeper, or the same bed, has been demonstrated to be the healthiest way for a young infant to sleep, and the AAP does recommend room-sharing, if not bed-sharing! (Remember that in many other cultures, the family bed is the norm.)

This article by Dr. William Sears puts it very succinctly.

To be honest, I cosleep because it's convenient for me. Frankly, I don't love cosleeping. I find I wake up with a stiff neck and shoulder and feeling like my torso is twisted. It takes a hot shower and some time upright before I feel like I can move freely again. I'd rather him sleep in the crib which is currently wedged between my side of the bed and the wall. I had intended for him to sleep there, take him out when he woke to nurse, and put him back in when he was done. That lasted one night. I found myself getting totally confused when he'd rouse, take a while to realize that he was awake and looking for me, and then I'd fall asleep nursing him, so he wouldn't make it back into the crib. Ah well. The same thing happened with SB. Eventually the inconvenient squirminess of a mobile baby will outweigh the convenience of popping out a boob and going back to sleep, and GI will be in the crib more regularly.

GI is currently showing signs of the four-month sleep regression, so while he does sleep soundly, he's waking  more often to nurse and spending more time with my nipple in his mouth. The other night, I kept trying to roll to my back, only to find there was still a baby attached to me. The choice was to stay on my side or unlatch and risk a wake-up. My typical choice in that situation is to stay where I am. This is where cosleeping works out so well, because I'm not up and down and up and down all night. I wouldn't say I'm getting lots of quality sleep, but I'm getting more than I would if I couldn't "sleep-nurse."

In other news, GI is still showing dairy sensitivity, having spit up rather dramatically just now. I tried a smidge of dairy the last few days, and it seems I, well, shouldn't have. It does seem he now tolerates soy and caffeine better, so at least I have that. I'll get to have macaroni and cheese again one day. Just, not today. I did get an ice cream maker and have been making non-dairy ice cream, which is loads of fun and takes the edge off the whole dairy-free thing.